Have something to say?

Ready to be published? LXer is read by around 350,000 individuals each month, and is an excellent place for you to publish your ideas, thoughts, reviews, complaints, etc. Do you have something to say to the Linux community?

Gentoo alert: Apache 2

A memory leak in mod_ssl allows a remote denial of service attack against an SSL-enabled server via plain HTTP requests. Another flaw was found when arbitrary client-supplied strings can be written to the error log, allowing the exploit of certain terminal emulators. A third flaw exists with the mod_disk_cache module.

A memory leak in mod_ssl allows a remote denial of service attack
against an SSL-enabled server via plain HTTP requests. Another flaw
was found when arbitrary client-supplied strings can be written to the
error log, allowing the exploit of certain terminal emulators. A third
flaw exists with the mod_disk_cache module.

Background
==========

The Apache HTTP Server Project is an effort to develop and maintain an
open-source HTTP server for modern operating systems. The goal of this
project is to provide a secure, efficient and extensible server that
provides services in tune with the current HTTP standards.

1. A memory leak in ssl_engine_io.c for mod_ssl in Apache 2.0.48 and
below allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service attack
via plain HTTP requests to the SSL port of an SSL-enabled server.

2. Apache fails to filter terminal escape sequences from error logs
that begin with the ASCII (0x1B) sequence and are followed by a
series of arguments. If a remote attacker could inject escape
sequences into an Apache error log, the attacker could take
advantages of weaknesses in various terminal emulators, launching
attacks against remote users including further denial of service
attacks, file modification, and the execution of arbitrary commands.

3. The Apache mod_disk_cache has been found to be vulnerable to a
weakness that allows attackers to gain access to authentication
credentials through the issue of caching HTTP hop-by-hop headers
which would contain plaintext user passwords. There is no available
resolution for this issue yet.

Impact
======

No special privileges are required for these vulnerabilities. As a
result, all users are recommended to upgrade their Apache
installations.

Workaround
==========

There is no immediate workaround; a software upgrade is required. There
is no workaround for the mod_disk_cache issue; users are recommended to
disable the feature on their servers until a patched version is
released.

Security is a primary focus of Gentoo Linux and ensuring the
confidentiality and security of our users machines is of utmost
importance to us. Any security concerns should be addressed to
[e-mail:security@gentoo.org] or alternatively, you may file a bug at
http://bugs.gentoo.org.